Alex Botwinick
Senior Consumer Products Sales Engineer
I’ve spent my whole career in the CPG and FMCG world, with the last nine years laser-focused on Trade Promotion Management (TPM). My journey has taken me from starting as a data nerd at Nielsen, to leading trade marketing at Arla, and then six years at UpClear where I worked across sales, implementation and consulting for BluePlanner.
Now at Aforza, I’m excited to launch this 5-part series where I’ll share the experiences, lessons, and best practices I’ve learned along the way, alongside some practical examples of how Ava, Aforza’s Vertical AI, helps companies solve these challenges in the real world.
We’ll kick off with what I call the 7 Deadly Sins of TPM: the most common mistakes I’ve seen companies make, and how you can avoid them to unlock better ROI, stronger collaboration and smarter decision-making.
1. Relying on Excel as Your TPM System
I get it. Excel is powerful, flexible, and almost everyone knows how to use it. I built plenty of promotion plans in spreadsheets myself. But TPM is too complex for rows and formulas. One broken link or version mismatch and suddenly millions in trade spend can’t be tracked.
A dedicated TPM solution like Aforza gives you structure, controls, and live visibility: while Ava makes sure users get guided through each step, spotting anomalies before they snowball into disasters. It’s about graduating from “making do” to actually managing promotions with confidence.
2. Garbage In, Garbage Out: Poor Planning Discipline
Early in my career, I saw how tempting it was to inflate volume forecasts to get a promotion approved. The problem? Reality eventually catches up, and trust between sales, finance, and marketing breaks down.
Ava helps change that. By interpreting data patterns and surfacing smarter guardrails, Ava guides planners toward realistic, achievable volumes. Instead of sandbagging or over-promising, you build credibility and protect ROI.
3. Lack of Formal Reconciliation Process
One of the biggest frustrations I’ve had with TPM projects is when planned vs. actual never gets reconciled. You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Without reconciliation, trade dollars leak out of the system and no one knows why.
The Aforza solution brings planned and actuals together in one view, and Ava automates reconciliation by surfacing discrepancies. Suddenly, finance teams aren’t chasing ghosts, they’re driving continuous improvement.
4. Copy-Paste Planning Year After Year
Too often I’ve seen teams dust off last year’s plan, change the dates, and hit copy-paste. It feels efficient, but it kills learning. You miss the chance to test new mechanics, channels, or timing.
Aforza gives you structured historical analysis, and Ava brings intelligence to the process – recommending what to keep, what to adapt, and what to drop. That shift from “rinse and repeat” to “learn and optimise” is where real growth comes from.
5. One-Size-Fits-All Trade Plans
Not all customers are created equal. A blanket promotion strategy is lazy, and expensive. I’ve seen companies overspend on small customers while under-investing in strategic ones, simply because they didn’t have the tools to differentiate.
With Ava, you can tailor investment by channel, account, and shopper base. Ava interprets the conditions at play and helps craft account-specific plans that maximise ROI without extra effort from the team.
6. Ignoring the Competition
Some of the toughest lessons I learned at Arla came from promotions being blindsided by competitor activity. A well-funded rival campaign can wipe out even the smartest plan.
That’s why competitor intelligence is essential. Ava uniquely interprets market data, scenario simulations, and even photo automation insights from the field to flag competitive risks. With this foresight, you can adapt your strategy before you’re outflanked.
7. Lack of Collaboration
This one is personal. I’ve seen great promotions fall apart because sales, trade, marketing, and retail execution weren’t aligned. Budgets went one way, POS materials another, and the field team had no clue what to prioritise.
Aforza connects everyone in one ecosystem, while Ava acts like a commercial coach that keeps all teams aligned on the same objectives. Collaboration stops being an afterthought and becomes the way you work every day.
Final Thoughts
The truth is, these sins aren’t new. I’ve lived them myself: as a trade marketer under pressure to hit numbers, as a consultant trying to untangle broken processes, and as a TPM practitioner designing systems that were supposed to prevent them.
What’s new is that we finally have technology that works with us rather than against us. Aforza was built specifically for consumer goods companies, and Ava makes it instantly smarter: guiding users, flagging risks, and automating the heavy lifting.
Trade promotion will always be complex. But it doesn’t have to be chaotic. By avoiding these seven sins, you can take control of your spend, build trust across teams and turn promotions into a real engine of growth.
Webinar: Driving Profitable Promotions at Speed with Ava
This 35-minute webinar will walk through a complete Trade Promotion Management flow, from the perspective of a Key Account Manager, showing how Aforza with Ava sets a new standard compared to legacy approaches. You’ll see how faster planning, smarter decisions and clearer financial control all come together in one intuitive flow.